trying to see through the gap between the billboards

January 06, 2008

Context

When you have a lot of panels, all over the studio, leaning against the walls, languishing in the racks, itís hard to see them.

Thereís one I walk past many times a day Ė itís by the door:

Isolate it, frame it, put it in a virtual gallery and:

There are stories of people submitting paintings by young children or chimpanzees, to modern art shows and being accepted. Mark Leithauser, Senior Curator at the National Gallery in Washington DC, looks at it another way:

"Let's say I took one of our more abstract masterpieces, say an Ellsworth Kelly, and removed it from its frame, marched it down the 52 steps that people walk up to get to the National Gallery, past the giant columns, and brought it into a restaurant. It's a $5 million painting. And it's one of those restaurants where there are pieces of original art for sale, by some industrious kids from the Corcoran School, and I hang that Kelly on the wall with a price tag of $150. No one is going to notice it. An art curator might look up and say: 'Hey, that looks a little like an Ellsworth Kelly. Please pass the salt.'" Washington Post

Just as the commuters in Washington DC didnít see, or rather hear, that the busker playing in the atrium was Joshua Bell, acclaimed virtuoso violinist, playing some of the hardest violin pieces ever written. Nor, for that matter, did anyone notice he was playing on a violin worth about 3.5 million dollars [£1.7 million].

Hereís the article from the Washington Post. Worth a read if you've got five minutes.

Posted by john at January 6, 2008 04:50 PM

Comments

It took me a lot longer than 5 minutes to read the article from the Washington Post, but it was really worth reading. Thanks for sharing.